The Falconer's Knot (14 page)

When the novice came into her room, Mother Elena tried to assess how much Chiara had changed since the day she had thrown her curls to the birds. She still looked too boldly into other people’s faces but now she remembered, after the first glance, to cast her gaze down. And she moved more slowly and was less impetuous. The Abbess thought that, with time, Chiara could make a good sister in the Order of the Poor Clares. She was willing and obedient but Mother Elena knew that she had still not felt the voice of God calling her to such a life. And she doubted that she ever would.

‘Sister Orsola,’ she said. ‘I have had an interesting letter about you. From Gubbio.’

‘From my brother?’ asked Chiara, surprised.

‘No, from a rich lady,’ said the Abbess.

‘Monna Isabella?’

‘She writes to ask if you could be released from your novitiate,’ said the Abbess gravely. ‘What do you think of that idea?’

Chiara did not know how to respond. A few weeks ago and she would have been thrilled at the prospect of escape, as she would have seen it. Now she did not know if she wanted to leave. There was Silvano close at hand and the chance of seeing him both here and in Assisi. And there was the work itself, which had opened her eyes to the marvels of art. And her curiosity made her want to stay to hear the end of the story of Ubaldo’s murder.

And yet . . . Isabella was offering her a way out of a life she dreaded. One day Silvano would leave and one day the paintings in the Basilica would be finished. In a year or two Chiara would be in the grey world of the sisters, growing older with no prospect of love or adventure. Wouldn’t it be better to be a companion to a wealthy widow in Gubbio, if that was what was being offered?

‘You are silent, Sister,’ said the Abbess.

‘It is a surprise to be asked, Mother,’ said Chiara. ‘What else does Monna Isabella say?’

‘That if you wish to be released, she will make a donation equivalent to the one that your brother gave on your entry into the convent. And that she is willing to keep you at her expense in her house in Gubbio. Your duties would be light, I think, more those of a companion than a servant.’

‘And would you agree to that, Mother?’ asked Chiara.

‘If that was what you wanted, yes,’ said the Abbess. ‘If you were sure that you have felt no vocation.’

Such kindness brought tears to Chiara’s eyes. A part of her wanted to please the Abbess, to tell her that she would be happy to devote her life to God and end her days in the little convent at Giardinetto. But the other part beat wildly at the bars of its cage and yearned to fly away, even to so near a place as Gubbio, and live the life of an almost free woman. Surely Isabella would be an undemanding mistress? And one day Chiara might find someone else to share her life with?

Here her imagination gave out. If she tried to visualise a man who might become her husband, only Silvano’s fine features appeared in her mind, and even though he was not a real friar he remained an aristocrat – each equally out of the reach of a Poor Clare and perhaps even of Monna Isabella’s dependent in Gubbio. She could not base a decision about the rest of her life on a good-looking youth who happened to live next door.

‘May I have some time to think about it, Mother?’ she asked.

The Abbess was surprised. She had thought that the novice would jump at the chance of her release. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I shall send to Gubbio to let Monna Isabella know of our conversation. She expects to be here quite frequently, as she has business with Father Bonsignore. You can talk to her the next time she visits.’

‘Well,’ said Simone. ‘We should leave your delightful table and visit Sister Veronica. We have brought the same amount of lapis lazuli for the grey sisters,’ he told Anselmo. ‘Perhaps it will inspire the spirit of competition?’

‘Thank you again for the repast,’ Pietro said to the Abbot.

The two painters went to say goodbye to the cook and Guest Master but Landolfo was unable to get to his feet. His face had gone a terrible colour and he was clutching his head. Brother Rufino was at his side in an instant.

‘What is it man?’ he snapped, pushing the other friars out of the way. He was a great friend of Landolfo’s and the Guest Master was alarming him.

Landolfo looked at the Infirmarian as if he didn’t know who he was. ‘Silvano,’ he said. ‘Where is the young falconer?’

‘I am here, Brother,’ said Silvano, coming forward quickly. ‘What can I do?’

‘Take your hawk,’ babbled Landolfo wildly. ‘We need a couple of hares. Artists are coming from Siena.’

Silvano looked helplessly towards the Abbot.

Simone leant over the Guest Master. ‘We are here, Brother,’ he said. ‘And have dined well.’

‘Here already?’ said Landolfo frantically. ‘But we must cook the hares. Bertuccio, quick.’ Then he slouched over the table and started to snore.

Silvano and the other brothers were amazed. It seemed as if Landolfo might be drunk but he was such an abstemious man and had hardly taken any wine at the meal. Certainly he was confused. Only Anselmo seemed to have an idea what was wrong. He went to Rufino and spoke to him and the Abbot urgently in a low voice.

‘We shall take Brother Landolfo to the infirmary,’ announced Father Bonsignore. ‘My apologies to our distinguished guests but, as you can see, our brother has been taken ill.’

He summoned Taddeo, Matteo and Silvano, the three youngest members of the house to carry Landolfo out of the refectory.

Brother Anselmo followed, aware that he was receiving some strange looks from the other brothers. At a loss whether to stay or go, the two Sienese painters also followed what was beginning to look like a cortège.

The young friars laid their brother on a cot in the infirmary and suddenly the room filled up with other people. The body on the bed, which no longer looked like Landolfo, began to convulse and a yellow liquid trickled from his mouth. Rufino and Anselmo exchanged desperate looks.

‘Hold him down,’ ordered Rufino, sending his assistants for cloths and water.

Landolfo was thrashing around, his eyes rolling up into his head.

‘Is it a fit?’ Simone asked Silvano.

‘I don’t know,’ said Silvano, helplessly. ‘I have never seen anyone like this.’

‘Was it something he ate?’ asked Pietro, surreptitiously passing a hand over his own full stomach.

‘Perhaps,’ said Rufino grimly.

Brother Anselmo took hold of one of Landolfo’s wildly flailing hands and silently invited the Infirmarian to look at the nails. They were turning a purplish-blue colour.

Landolfo’s back arched with another spasm and then he fell into a sonorous slumber.

‘If it is as we think,’ said Rufino, ‘there is one thing we might try. Anselmo, do you have any sulphur in the colour room?’

Anselmo was beginning to shake his head when Brother Fazio broke in, ‘I do, Brother. I use it in the manufacture of oro musivo – the gold employed on parchment. It is not the only component of course . . .’

‘For Heaven’s sake, man, we don’t need a disquisition on how to make illuminator’s gold!’ said Rufino. ‘Just fetch it will you?’

‘Very well,’ said Fazio, offended, but he trotted off at a great pace.

‘Is he asleep?’ Silvano asked Anselmo, looking down at Landolfo.

The Colour Master shook his head. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I think he is dying. Brother Landolfo has been poisoned.’

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CHAPTER TWELVE

Poison in the Air

W
hen Chiara left the Abbess and crossed the convent yard, she saw two brothers hastily carrying a plain coffin into the main house. She stopped for a moment and crossed herself, a cold premonition touching her spine.

But she shook off her fears. There surely couldn’t be another death so soon. While she was still watching, the painter Simone and his friend Pietro hurriedly crossed the small distance between the two houses, looking desperately worried.

‘Ah, Sister Orsola,’ said Simone. ‘Well met. Can you take us to Abbess Elena?’

‘Of course. You want to see her before you go to the colour room?’ asked Chiara, setting off to retrace her steps.

‘I think our commission of ultramarine will have to wait,’ said Pietro. ‘We bring bad news from the friary.’

Chiara halted. ‘Someone else has died, haven’t they?’

The two painters looked at each other. ‘Such news should be told first to the Abbess,’ said Simone gently.

‘Please!’ insisted Chiara. ‘If it is one of the brothers, tell me who. I have friends there.’

Pietro shrugged. ‘It is Brother Landolfo.’

Relief flooded through Chiara’s body. Then she felt ashamed. She did not know Brother Landolfo but she was sorry that any of the friars had died and so suddenly that he must have gone unshriven. How awful to die unconfessed and unabsolved, she thought, especially for a friar. But perhaps, being a friar, he had very few sins to confess or forgive?

‘How did it happen?’ she managed to ask.

‘It appears that he might have been poisoned,’ said Simone, as the friary chapel bell started to toll.

‘Another murder?’ asked Chiara.

‘We really should go to the Abbess,’ said Simone.

‘Yes,’ said Chiara. ‘I’ll take you straight to her.’ But her thoughts were in chaos.

Another murder meant another murderer – or the same one who had stabbed Ubaldo the merchant. But that meant it was one of the brothers – it was unthinkable! She wished she could talk to Silvano and Anselmo about it.

Once she had left the painters at the Abbess’s door, she had to run to Sister Veronica and tell her what had happened. The sisters in the colour room had already heard the passing bell and were sitting white-faced, waiting to find out what had happened.

‘Poison?’ said Sister Veronica, as if she hadn’t understood the word. ‘He must have eaten something bad.’

Chiara lowered her eyes and whispered, ‘I think it was another murder.’

The friars of Giardinetto were stunned. Brother Fazio had brought the sulphur but it had been too late. Brother Landolfo had never recovered consciousness and soon ceased to breathe. For Silvano, it was the second time he had seen a man die and the third violent death to have occurred near him in a matter of weeks. His mind struggled to make sense of it. A small voice at the back of it said that at least it hadn’t been another stabbing; he was sure suspicion would have fallen on him again if it had been.

But something worse was happening. All the brothers were looking at one another with doubt and distrust. And the rumours about Brother Anselmo grew. His early romantic entanglement with Monna Isabella now seemed to have become common gossip, making him the chief suspect for her husband’s death.

No one had come up with a reason why he might have wanted to kill the Guest Master but Silvano heard more than one friar talking about how Anselmo had been the only one who knew what was wrong with Landolfo.

‘That makes no sense,’ he objected whenever he heard such gossip. ‘Brother Anselmo was helping Rufino look after Landolfo. Why would he have done that if he had poisoned him?’

Silvano went to seek Anselmo out and eventually found him praying in the chapel where Landolfo’s body lay. Silvano slipped on to a bench beside him and waited. He was appalled when he saw the face that Anselmo at last lifted from his hands; his mentor seemed to have aged years in the last half hour.

They left the chapel together in silence until Silvano dared to ask, ‘How is it with you, Brother?’

‘I am close to the sin of despair,’ said Anselmo. ‘There is a spirit of evil at work in this house that threatens to engulf us all.’

‘You think it is the same person who killed Ubaldo?’

‘How can it be otherwise?’ said Anselmo wearily. ‘It is bad enough to think that Satan has entered the heart of one of our brothers – I can’t believe there are two.’

As they crossed the yard, Brother Anselmo noticed for the first time that other friars, who were loitering in groups of two and three, were looking at him and turning away as he passed.

‘What does this mean?’ he asked Silvano.

‘I think that your history with Monna Isabella has become known,’ said Silvano, embarrassed.

Anselmo stopped and looked at him.

‘And how would that have happened?’ he asked. ‘I have told no one but Father Bonsignore and yourself.’

Silvano felt terrible. ‘I didn’t tell them, I swear to you, Brother.’

‘I don’t doubt you, Silvano,’ said Anselmo. ‘And I would swear it was not the Abbot. But that means that there was someone else who knew.’

‘I have told them that you had no reason to kill Brother Landolfo,’ said Silvano hopelessly.

‘No reason in the world,’ said Anselmo passing his hand over his forehead. ‘He was my brother in Christ and I loved him. But perhaps they will say that it was Landolfo who knew my past and I wanted to silence him.’

Suddenly he turned on his heel and took Silvano by the sleeve.

‘Let us visit the sisters,’ he said. ‘I know that the Abbot will not doubt me but I should speak to the Abbess before any rumours reach her.’

The painters were still with the Abbess in her cell, along with Sister Veronica and Chiara, when the friars arrived. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Silvano could not help noticing that Chiara looked very pretty. Her hair, which had started to grow again, was escaping from under her veil and framing her face like one of Simone’s burnished haloes. He saw that Simone was also casting covert glances at the young novice and he wondered for the first time if the painter were a married man.

‘So it is true,’ said Mother Elena. ‘The Guest Master was deliberately poisoned.’

‘I think so, Mother,’ said Brother Anselmo. ‘I was explaining – was it only this morning, Silvano? – why I don’t make certain pigments in the colour room because they contain arsenikon. I have seen its effects in other places where I have worked on the colours and I recognised them in Landolfo.’

‘Was that why Brother Rufino called for sulphur?’ asked Pietro.

‘Yes, but I could see it was too late. Landolfo must have taken a huge dose for it to kill him so quickly.’

‘So it was in his food?’ asked the Abbess.

‘Either that or his drink,’ said Anselmo. ‘But he drank very little – every brother knew that.’

‘Every brother?’ said the Abbess. ‘So you think it was one of your house that killed him?’

Anselmo did not answer.

‘Forgive me but wouldn’t Brother Landolfo have tasted the poison in his food?’ asked Chiara.

‘The dishes were rich and highly spiced today,’ said Anselmo.

‘So it was Landolfo’s dish alone that carried the poison?’ said the Abbess. ‘The arsenikon was not in the serving dishes that came from the kitchen?’

The men all tried to remember the details of the midday meal.

‘None of us has suffered any ill effects,’ said Simone. ‘Even those who ate without restraint,’ he added, looking at Pietro.

‘I must tell you that I am under suspicion,’ said Brother Anselmo quietly, looking round the little group. ‘And I must ask that you don’t disclose that to anyone outside this room.’

‘But why you, Brother?’ asked Sister Veronica, appalled.

‘Why any of us?’ asked Anselmo. He spread his palms, resigned. ‘No one wants to think that any follower of Our Lord and Saint Francis would plan to take another man’s life. But some of the brothers believe they have found a reason that I might have wanted to kill the merchant.’

Silvano and Chiara exchanged glances. Brother Anselmo didn’t say what the reason was but continued, ‘And now that there has been another death my name is being linked to both.’

‘That is ridiculous,’ said Mother Elena immediately. ‘You are our priest and our spiritual adviser and I would stake my life you are no killer.’

‘Thank you,’ said Anselmo. ‘In days to come I may be glad to number those who think so against my accusers.’

‘Are we in any danger here, Brother?’ asked the Abbess.

‘I fear we are all in danger,’ said Anselmo. ‘Since Landolfo was a man of God with a sweet nature, he had no enemies. We can only assume that his attacker was insane. And if there is a lunatic at large in the friary, he could strike at any one of us.’

‘This is appalling,’ said Simone. ‘How are we to continue painting pictures to the Glory of God in Assisi while the Devil works in secret so nearby?’

‘It is in all our interests to find the wrongdoer as soon as possible,’ said Anselmo. ‘In the meantime I shall suggest to Father Bonsignore that we keep a guard here on the convent gate.’

Isabella was enduring a most unpleasant interview with her brother-in-law Umberto. He was furious that she had appointed the Abbot of the place where Ubaldo died to be her legal representative.

‘It is an insult to my brother’s memory,’ he fumed. ‘That man might have been involved in his death for all we know.’

‘Hardly,’ said Isabella. ‘He is a man of God.’

‘So are they all in that place,’ said Umberto. ‘And yet one of them minced my brother’s organs with his own dagger.’

Isabella winced. ‘It was an intruder,’ she said.

‘So they say. But nothing was taken – no money or jewels. That does not sound like the work of a casual intruder to me.’

‘I have no father or brother to act for me,’ she said, as calmly as she could.

‘But you have a brother under the law,’ said Umberto. ‘And I had already offered my services.’

‘I did not think that you would place my concerns first,’ said Isabella.

‘Quite right,’ snapped Umberto. ‘My brother’s children come first.’

‘That is something that we can agree on, at least,’ said Isabella. ‘But after them, I have decisions to make about my own life. And Father Bonsignore was kind to me.’